Car Talk Goes Under the Dash with Bill Kramer

This is an amusing (and true) anecdote! Recently, I was trying to find yet another short circuit under the dashboard of my beloved 1970 MG Midget.

Picture this: I'm upside down. My back is resting on the car seat and my legs are over the head rest. You got it?

The back of my neck is resting lightly on the clutch and brake pedals. A flashlight's in my mouth. I'm pulling at the wires.

Well, I guess I rested my head a little too hard, because the brake and clutch pedals depressed just enough to allow them to slip around either side of my neck entrapping me.

And, of course, the foot-well space is so tight down there that I couldn't move my arms enough to reach the pedals.

Initially, after several long minutes spent imagining the guffawing that my death notice would create, I managed to get my right elbow in a position where it had barely enough strength to depress the clutch, giving my neck a nasty scratch, but allowing me to escape the Pedals of Death. I hope you'll keep that image in mind the next time you advise people to look under the dashboard.

Sincerely yours,

William Kramer

P.S. Should I report this to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as a safety defect? After all, there's no warning about this in the manual.